


No More Love at Your Convenience

by Cat_Moon



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alive Ianto Jones, M/M, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 06:38:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19371409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cat_Moon/pseuds/Cat_Moon
Summary: Ianto is trying to move on.  Jack eventually returns to Cardiff after COE and EOT, and has to face a shocking development.





	No More Love at Your Convenience

**Author's Note:**

> I call this one of my "pro-Ianto" stories, written back in 2010 when I had to get it out of my system. Yes, it was inspired by the Alice Cooper song from the album "Lace and Whiskey." No, I don't mention how Ianto survived; the story isn't about that and there are tons of fix-its out there. Originally posted somewhere on LJ. American grammar and spellings. No happy Janto ending, but possibilities always exist.

 

  
_Don't you see, things gotta be how they gotta be_  
_No more love at your convenience_  
_No more love at your command_  
_Lots of times late at night_  
_I really needed you..._  
\--No more Love At Your Convenience, Alice Cooper

 

  
 It was the third time that finally got to him. This was the third week in a row that Gwen had dragged Ianto to dinner with her and Rhys. The pitying looks, the not-so-subtle hints about fixing him up with one of the girls she knew from her days as a PC… It was a bit much.

  
 So when Gwen had disappeared for a few, gone to the ladies and to phone the sitter and check on Pryce, Ianto leaned forward in his chair, fixing Rhys with a steady, frank gaze. “I don’t suppose you know any nice blokes who might be interested in meeting someone new?” He was proud of himself for not blushing, even in the face of Rhys’ startled look.

  
 “Um… yeah, now that you mention it… we’ve got a new driver just started with Harwoods a couple of months ago who ah, you know, doesn’t fancy girls,” Rhys finished, flustered. “I thought, I mean, can I ask you a question?” Ianto nodded warily. “If you like women too, why not make it easy on yourself and let Gwen fix you up with one of her mates?”

  
What could he say? Once you’ve had Jack, you can’t go back? That after Lisa he couldn’t bring himself to be with another woman? Either one made him sound like a pathetic sod still mourning those he lost. The words that did come out of his mouth though, were genuine. “I want to have a relationship with a normal guy. I’ve never had that and I’d like to try it out. I want someone _nice_ , who can care about me the same way I do him. Who’s capable of love and commitment. Gwen is lucky to have you. You stand by her and support her, all through the Torchwood craziness. Understanding and putting up with the long hours, the secrets… I respect you immensely for that, so I wondered if you knew any decent guys who are gay or bisexual.” Ianto was proud of himself for his openness. Maybe dying and coming back to life does make one grow up. Owen had had to die to find _his_ peace.  Ianto just hoped he wouldn’t get all this wonderful maturing done only to die for good when he was through.

  
 Rhys’ mouth was hanging open in astonished pleasure at the compliment. He pulled himself together and spoke. “Tony is his name. He seems nice enough, been to the pub with us a few times, rugby games. He’s not one of my best mates though, so I can’t say for sure.”

  
 “Good enough.”

  
As Gwen returned to the table, Rhys gave Ianto a small nod, one that said he understood this would stay between the two of them.

  
 Now Ianto only had to find out if _he_ could still do normal after all these years with the freak show.

  
XXX

  
 “Hey kids, daddy’s home!"  
  
  
Jack Harkness loved making dramatic entrances. He breezed into the New Hub like he’d never been away, coat swishing and huge grin plastered on his face. If it looked painted on, no one noticed in their surprise, too distracted by his looming presence.  
  
  
Gwen was the first one to run over, just as he’d expected. She hugged him tightly, muttering affectionate curses that he took with good humor. Even when she pulled back and hit him hard in the arm, he accepted it as his due. He looked around at the assembled team all trying to talk at once, and his smile faded to a more real one. The old familiar faces made it like coming home despite the rebuilt Hub and the time that had gone by. It gave him a warm feeling that threatened to choke him (at least this is what he told himself the feeling was). His bravado had been mostly bluffing at first, not entirely sure he’d be welcomed back, but with the Doctor’s help he’d made enough peace with himself to try again. Try and ignore the emptiness inside him…but then it had been there ever since his very first gasp back to life – it was just larger than it had been now.

  
Desperate for a distraction from the gaping hole, Jack remembered his companion and turned to pull the quiet, unassuming young man to his side with a proprietary arm around the trim waist. “This is our newest team member, Alonso Frame,” he introduced proudly. “He’s loyal, has lots of alien experience, and looks good in a uniform,” he added with a wink.

  
Silence descended like a light switch being flipped. Jack looked at Gwen; she was staring at him with shock and some unnamed emotion on her face. Martha fidgeted uncomfortably. Mickey mumbled something in a faintly reproving tone that sounded like “ _daddy is right_ …” And Andy was finding his computer terminal inordinately fascinating.

  
And then, it was just a tiny movement of Gwen’s eyes upwards that tipped Jack off, the barest of glances, but he saw it and turned to look up at the catwalk above them. He was already too late to catch anything except the shadow of someone moving away into the darkness beyond the walkway.

  
Jack turned back to the team. “What?!” he demanded to their continued silence. “What’s going on?”

  
Gwen stepped forward and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. Dislodging his grip on Alonzo and giving the boy one quick glance, she started leading Jack away. “Let’s go talk in my—the office,” she said softly.

  
XXX

  
Later when Martha asked Gwen how Jack took the news that Ianto wasn’t dead, she’d admit that there was no emotion whatsoever on the immortal’s face as she carefully explained what had happened. That he’d said not one word, merely turned and walked out of office when she’d finished.

  
Jack promptly disappeared into the bowels of the underground base for two hours. There were parts he knew well, so deep that no one ever went there. Not even…

  
A hidden refuge that no bomb could touch and so remote that it swallowed up the sound of screaming.

  
XXX

  
 Ianto knew immediately that he wasn’t alone; it was a sixth sense he couldn’t seem to shake. And the other man knew that he knew as well…   Funny how some things didn’t seem to change. Still, he kept his back to the visitor for several minutes as he forced his focus on organizing the files, allowing the shivers from being watched so intently to chase themselves up and down his spine. Small pleasures he couldn’t resist indulging in.

  
 When the silence started to become suffocating Ianto finally spoke, but he didn’t turn. “He’s very young.”

  
“You, too?” Jack asked irritably, obviously having heard the comment from one of the others already.

  
Ianto shrugged. “Hot though. Is that what you want me to say?”

  
“He’s not as young as he looks.”

  
Ianto finally turned around. Jack looked almost old. Haggard. For an immortal who was only about a century and a half old (Ianto didn’t think the time buried or in cryo should count), it was vaguely alarming. Ianto couldn’t reach out though, not with everything that had happened, and the time for tearful reunions was long past. All they could do was stare at each other in some kind of emotional standoff.

  
Ianto remembered an almost shy, hesitant Jack stumbling over asking him out on a date, the first time he’d come back from being away in space. This one didn’t feel hesitant though, just empty. And he’d brought his boyfriend home with him this time. That was just as well, because Ianto had one of his own now, and it was going quite nicely, thank you. He didn’t want complications, or uncontrollable passions, or threesomes, foursomes either. His current man didn’t have the urge to share, and Ianto found that refreshing. Uniquely normal for a 21st century guy, which was all Ianto Jones was after all. Nothing special, just another nice bloke from Cardiff. Nothing wrong with that, unless you got the taste for more, starting longing for it, convinced yourself you might actually be able to have it.

  
Ianto spoke, hoping to forestall any ‘scenes’ that he was feeling unequipped to handle. “It’s not your fault and it’s not mine. It’s just the way things are.” Jack stared at him. Ianto couldn’t guess what he was thinking, and that disturbed him. It reminded him of the old old days.

  
“How are things?” Jack asked in an oddly hoarse voice.

  
“Before I died,” Ianto continued, ignoring Jack’s flinch at the bluntness, “I thought I could handle… taking whatever you could give. But things have changed now. I’ve moved on, you’ve… as well,” he tried to smooth over the stumble caused by the doubt that had entered his mind briefly, after being presented with Ianto 2.0.  At least now he knew what the attraction was. He was Jack’s type. For all Ianto knew, this guy, Alonso, was more like 6.0 and Ianto just another number in the grand scheme of things.  That stung, irrationally.  “It’s been over a year and neither of us are the same people.”

  
“More than you know,” Jack whispered enigmatically. After another brief moment of silence, when neither of them could think of anything else to say (too much, not enough), Jack headed for the door. Maybe neither one of them wanted to hurt the other again, to pull off scabs that were still in the process of healing.

  
“Would you take some advice?” Ianto asked tentatively.

  
Jack turned back, finding a smile for his former love. “I’ve always known your advice to be sound.”        

  
“Don’t make the same mistakes with him, he doesn’t deserve it.  He’s just a kid who has his life ahead of him. If you can’t make him happy –  _can't let him make you happy_  – then leave him alone. For both your sakes. I know the pain of…not being enough for the person you love and would do anything for,” Ianto forced himself to admit. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

  
Jack nodded, tightly. “Yeah, I know about that myself.”

  
 And then Ianto was alone in the room again.

  
 It had been easy while Jack was gone. To lead a normal life, go home at a decent hour as long as the world wasn’t ending, eat in front of the telly while your SO complained about the stupid plot holes in the latest science fiction show that you could never take seriously anyway because you knew the truth…

  
Tony. He was quirky, in his normal way, uniquely normal. He loved getting dirty from a Saturday afternoon of rugby in the park and then fucking hard, cooking pasta at two in the morning while having a long conversation about something that _mattered_ , dragging Ianto into dark clubs to listen to screaming singers he couldn’t understand a word of (but with a beat that would be fantastic to fuck to in the bathroom of the club with the beat of the amps pounding through the walls…and that was a recurring fantasy only as Tony has absolutely no exhibitionist streak in him at all). And had Jack ruined him for anyone else, or could he manage to resist the heroin Jack pumped out with his very presence without needing to mainline?

  
 The things that you craved the most could be the things that were the most unhealthy.

  
Maybe, Ianto reflected as he shifted in reaction to an uncomfortable hardness in his trousers, he was underestimating himself. The weary, subdued space traveler who’d just stood in front of him he’d once accepted as flirty, filthy, and larger than life… but maybe Ianto had contributed a part of that himself.  While Jack was open to anything and almost anyone, it had been Ianto who instigated a lot of the sex games.   Telling himself at the time that it was only to keep things exciting for Jack – to keep Jack interested. Maybe that had been another lie he told himself. Maybe next time Blue Gillespie was playing and Tony dragged him to see them, he’d drag the man into a shadowy corner, protesting or not, and show him what the music was made for.

  
Maybe Ianto Jones, after Canary Warf, and Lisa, and Torchwood three, and Jack Harkness, would finally come back to life.

  
XXX

 

Jack wondered about a lot of things as he made his slow way back to the office, still struggling to get himself under control again after seeing Ianto for the first time in what felt like forever. Would they be able to work together, despite their past history? Would either of them ever have the courage and strength needed to rebuild the relationship they’d once shared? They had come through so much, forged an unlikely yet deep bond after mutual betrayal of a world altering magnitude. That alone should have been impossible, yet they had slipped deeper into each other almost effortlessly. 

  
And as he stepped into his office and found Alonso waiting for him, a small tentative smile on the expectant face, he wondered if his thoughts were supposed to be on the young man in front of him.

  
They were full of Ianto.

 

**The end**

01/02/10

 

 

 

  
 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> You are free to imagine anything you want for the future. If you ask me how I think it might go… I have to admit I’m not sure Ianto can be content with the “normal” rugby fan truck driver after walking on the wild side with Jack. I sorta see a passionate and tawdry affair (after Jack has tried to take Ianto’s advice and be a good boyfriend w/Alonso). Maybe starting on a night when they get stuck going out on a Weevil sighting together because no one else is available (NOT a good idea) leads to frantic groping in an alley. Both of them knowing they’re wrong, cheating on their loyal SO’s, can’t seem to stop. Once again sharing darkness. Maybe in the end Alonso can go off with Tony. Or maybe poor Ianto will be able to break free of Jack’s hold and get the life he really deserves. Who knows. Shrug.


End file.
